Lecture 04 game_world

1. FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME
DESIGN
GAME WORLD
Sayed Ahmed
BSc. Eng. in CSc. & Eng. (BUET)
MSc. in CSc. (U of Manitoba)
http://sayed.JustEtc.net
http://www.JustETC.net
Presented at the University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Just E.T.C for Business, Education, Technology, and Entertainment Solutions
Textbook References:
Fundamentals of Game Design, 2nd
Edition, Ernest Adams
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2. OBJECTIVES
 Know the various dimensions of a game world
and understand how they affect the player’s
experience of the game
 Define a physical model for your game world,
including its dimensionality, scale, and what
happens at the boundaries
 Explain the relationship between game time and
real time and decide how time will behave in
your game
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3. OBJECTIVES (CONT.)
 Create the culture and environment of a game
world, set the level of detail, and define a visual
and auditory style
 Know some of the techniques for influencing the
player’s emotions
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4. OBJECTIVES (CONT.)
 Be aware of how the ethics of a game world can
differ from the ethics of the real world and the
implications for public acceptance of your game
 Understand the multidimensional nature of
realism as it applies to games and how it affects
the player’s expectations about the experience
the game will give her
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5. WHAT IS A GAME WORLD?
 Imaginary place in which the events of the game
occur
 Presented by images and sounds
 Not all games have a game world
 A game world can have a culture, an aesthetic, a
set of moral values, and other dimensions
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6. THE PURPOSES OF A GAME WORLD
 Entertain
 Create and sustain interest
 Sell the game
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7. THE DIMENSIONS OF A GAME
WORLD
 Physical
 Temporal
 Environmental
 Emotional
 Ethical
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8. PHYSICAL DIMENSION
 Simulated physical space
 Characterized by dimensionality, scale, and
boundaries
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9. PHYSICAL DIMENSION (CONT.)
 Spatial dimensionality
 2D, 2.5D, 3D, 4D
 3D is now standard on PC and console games
 Scale
 Absolute size of the space and relative size of objects
and people
 Affected by choice of camera model
 Boundaries
 How to establish a credible “edge of the world”?
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10. TEMPORAL DIMENSION
 Defines the way that time is treated in the game
world and how it differs from time in the real
world
 Variable time—game time usually runs faster than
real time, and jumps or changes rate
 Anomalous time—time can move at different speeds
simultaneously in different parts of the game
 In some games, the player can adjust the speed of
time in the game
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11. ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSION
 Describes the world’s appearance and its
atmosphere
 Forms the basis for creating art and audio
 Includes cultural context and physical
surroundings
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12. ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSION
(CONT.)
 Cultural context
 Beliefs, attitudes, values, political and religious
institutions, and social organization of people in the
game world
 Influences every manmade item in the world
 User interface and backstory should harmonize with
the culture
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13. ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSION
(CONT.)
 Physical surroundings
 Include every manmade object, natural object, and
sound in the game world
 Set the tone and mood
 Try to make surroundings unique
 Include as much detail as possible until it hurts
gameplay
 Style includes both:
 Content of the world itself
 How that content is presented to the player
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14. EMOTIONAL DIMENSION
 Emotions created in the player
 Emotions can be caused in several ways
 Facing challenges
 Interacting with the characters
 More sophisticated games move beyond “fun” to
richer emotions
 Avoid “paint-by-numbers” emotional content
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15. ETHICAL DIMENSION
 Defines right and wrong in the game world
 Part of the culture and history in the game world
 Build richer, more involving games by giving
players tough moral choices to make
 Avoid violence for its own sake; give it a purpose
and context
 If game world ethics are unrealistic, make
visuals unrealistic also
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16. REALISM
 All games, no matter how realistic, require some
simplification
 Degree of realism of any aspect of a game can be
found on a continuum from highly
representational to highly abstract
 Level of realism differs in individual game
components
 Can have realistic physics but cartoon graphics, or
vice versa
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17. SUMMARY
 You should now understand
 Defining the purpose of a game world
 Creating the physical dimension
 Defining the passage of time
 Establishing the environment
 Creating emotions in the player
 Determining ethics in the game world
 Establishing levels of realism
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